Karla (fictional character)

Karla is a fictional character in several novels by John le Carré. A Soviet Intelligence officer, he most often appears as a distant antagonist of George Smiley. His real name is never revealed; instead he takes his codename from that of the first network that he recruited. His most prominent appearances are in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy; and Smiley's People, three novels which were later published as a single omnibus edition entitled Smiley Versus Karla or The Quest for Karla in the US.

In the BBC's television adaptations of both Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People, Karla is played by British actor Patrick Stewart. Karla is only seen briefly in one scene in each production and does not speak.

Much of Karla's history is unconfirmed rumour, as passed by Smiley to his protégé Peter Guillam. Among the rumours are: that his father was a professional intelligence officer, first for the Czarist Okhrana and later for the Bolshevist Cheka, that as a boy Karla worked as a kitchen boy on a train in occupied Siberia during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 (putting his birth somewhere in the late 19th century), and that he was trained in espionage by "Berg" (a possible reference to an alias used by Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov), which Smiley compares to "being taught music by a great composer.".

The first recorded Karla activities came during the Spanish Civil War, when he entered Franco's fascist Spain posing as a White Russian journalist (i.e., an anti-Communist Russian), and recruited a large number of German agents. The network was code-named "Karla", and the agent was later known only by that name. It was an outstanding achievement for such a young man and would become characteristic of Karla in the series.

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